Barry shrugged, leading Juniper into the records room. It was a long, narrow room that was a leftover space after the interior transformation of the library. There was a rectangular table in the middle, an old microfiche at the farthest end, and the walls were lined with town histories, every Jericho High yearbook dating back to 1917, and thick dowels hung with newspapers like faded sheets on a clothesline. Barry set his stack of green ledgers in the middle of the table and then took the box from Juniper’s arms.
“I guess so,” he said. “She posts all sorts of stuff about life in Jericho, and I doubt she secures permission from everyone who pops up in her photos. You’ll get lots of attention, I’m sure. Jericho Unscripted enjoys a broader audience than the Chronicle.”
Juniper groaned. Clearly, she had discovered who Everett’s “overactive” local journalist was. Though it sounded like calling India’s blog posts “journalism” was more than generous.
“She’ll probably write something like ‘New Instructor for Mom and Tot Hour’ or ‘Welcome Home, Juniper.’?”
“She wouldn’t,” Juniper whispered, her mouth suddenly dry as toast.
“Oh, she would. She will. That’s why I told you. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Thank you,” Juniper choked, and Barry gave her a sympathetic look.
“Want to help me with these records?” he asked, but it was obvious that he didn’t need her help. He was just trying to be nice.
“Looks like you’ve got everything under control. I should make a game plan for next week.” Juniper was about to excuse herself when she caught sight of a row of Bankers Boxes lined up neatly on the floor beneath the shelves. “What’s in those?”
Barry followed the line of her finger. “Old newspapers. They’re on microfiche, of course, but Cora is having a hard time letting go of the originals.”
“May I?” Juniper doubted Barry would oblige, but he nodded and swept his arm toward them magnanimously.
“Be my guest. We don’t need them today.”
Juniper crouched down and ran her fingertips over the striped boxes. They had been arranged chronologically, and she had to crawl on the floor to find the year she was looking for. Sliding the box out, she carried it to the circulation desk and lifted off the top.
There wasn’t much inside. The newspapers were filed in order and separated by tabs that marked each month. Four, sometimes five weekly newspapers per section, plus the Shopper, a small insert that featured local ads and coupons. More than half the box was empty, a sad testament to the anemic existence of Jericho, Iowa. Or maybe it was a good thing. No news was good news, right?
Juniper flipped to the month of June and lifted out the flat stack of newsprint. As she knew it would, her graduating class grinned beneath the simple headline:
CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATES!
Of course graduation would be the biggest news of the week. What else happened in Jericho?
In spite of the drama post–Mom & Tot Hour, Juniper couldn’t tear herself away from the photo. She and Ashley were side by side, arms thrown around each other and mortarboards askew. They were flashing peace signs for no apparent reason, and Juniper found she could remember the way her hair clung to her neck in the heat, the way Ashley smelled of bubble gum and that dime-store body spray she loved. It felt like yesterday and like someone else’s story at the same time. She didn’t know what that kind of happiness felt like anymore. But even then, hadn’t it been a ruse? A paper-thin likeness of joy that crumbled to dust at the first hint of adversity.
Every face in the photo was familiar, even though Juniper couldn’t name them all if she tried. Her time at Jericho High was a forgotten history, as meaningless and inconsequential as what she had for breakfast yesterday. But that wasn’t entirely true. Some of it mattered. And try as she might to forget, little things came rushing back. Inside jokes, teachers she had loved—and hated. Her first kiss with Edward Cohen behind the bleachers at a varsity football game. He tasted of cinnamon breath mints and, underneath that, hot buttered popcorn.
Juniper traced her fingers around the frame of the photograph. Those kids had no idea what was coming. She felt sorry for them.
A quick flip through the rest of the newspaper confirmed what she already knew to be true: there was no mention at all of the storm that was brewing in Jericho.
The Jericho Chronicle came out every Wednesday, and there were only four editions between the graduation cover story and a headline that looked entirely different. Juniper already knew what she would find. Years ago she had scoured the photograph for evidence, pressing her nose to the paper so that she could get a closer look and coming away with black smudges against her skin. She never found what she was looking for. And although she doubted she would now, she pulled out the Fourth of July special extended edition and made herself look again.
JERICHO ROCKED BY DOUBLE HOMICIDE
“Rocked” didn’t seem like quite the right word. Stunned, devastated, leveled. In many ways, destroyed. Jericho was never the same after the Murphys were murdered. It brought something dark and wicked home to roost: the gruesome, oily threat of menace; that unspeakable things could happen here, too—even in quaint little Jericho.
Though the heading was shocking, the photograph beneath was rather harmless. It was a shot of the Murphys’ acreage the morning after, yellow police tape strung across the gravel drive and a scattering of official vehicles parked haphazardly in the grass. Cal would have hated that. Tires raking up his lawn, gouging long, ugly hash marks across the careful expanse of green. Afterward, the place sat empty for years, and with no one to tend the grass, those heavy trucks left bare patches like scars.
The article itself was pallid, devoid of any real information except for the line that made Juniper’s lungs feel crushed every time she read it: Suspect in custody. They should have just written the truth: Jonathan Baker in custody. Everyone knew it.
Juniper glanced at her watch. Nearly three o’clock. The members of the Heritage Society would be filtering through the front doors soon, and she would have to go pick up Willa from school. This was neither the time nor the place for a more careful inspection, so after glancing toward the records room to make sure that Barry was still occupied, Juniper took the entire stack of magazines from June, July, and August and rolled them up. They made a fat cylinder that slid perfectly beside the laptop in her backpack. Everything about her petty theft was wrong, from the fact that she was essentially stealing from her dear friend to the atrocious way she had handled old documents, but Juniper didn’t care. The newspaper was an incomplete history anyway. Riddled with holes and white lies. She knew the true biography of Jericho. At least, some of it.
Juniper helped a few patrons find the books they were looking for and sent Cora a “thinking about you” text while Barry welcomed the Heritage Society. They were a boisterous group of gray-haired men and women who shook Juniper’s hand warmly and held her gaze as if to say, We know who you are and none of that matters to us. Juniper’s pulse quickened when one of the older gentlemen pulled her into a hug and whispered, “Glad you’re home, Ms. Baker. You belong here.”
Although she didn’t necessarily agree—not only did Juniper feel like an outsider, she wanted to be one—his words struck a raw nerve. The desire to belong was a weed that grew no matter how hard she tried to dig it up. Just when she thought she had it rooted out completely, a resolute sprout unfurled.
“Thank you,” she told him, gripping his wrinkled hands in both her own. What she didn’t say was that she suspected he was one of the only people in all of Jericho who was glad she was here.